Former education commissioners: Kids take too many tests

Four of the state's past education commissioners, now free from political backlash, agreed Monday that Texas needs less high-stakes testing in its public schools — a common theme among parents, educators and some lawmakers.

The commissioners, appointed by either Gov. Rick Perry or his predecessor, George W. Bush, suggested that Texas — a pioneer of the testing movement — has gone too far in requiring most high school students to pass 15 end-of-course exams to graduate.

The message is not lost on Perry. The Republican governor is expected to announce today to a group of business leaders that he supports re-evaluating the number of mandatory high school exams — a good indication that students likely will face fewer tests, though legislators will have to agree on how many.

Michael Williams, Perry's current education commissioner, has urged lawmakers in recent weeks not to retreat from high standards. However, his deputy commissioner, Robert Durón, said Monday that his boss would concede Texas has “gone too far with testing.”

Adding to the list of heavyweights chiming in, Bush's former U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings agreed during a public forum at Rice University that 15 high-stakes tests were too many.

The blunt admissions from education insiders could provide momentum for several bills now floating in the Legislature that would reduce standardized testing, scaling back requirements that lawmakers recently toughened.

Last year's ninth-graders were the first to be affected by the law requiring that they earn a passing average on 15 end-of-course exams in reading, writing, math, science and social studies throughout high school to graduate under the state's default diploma plan. Texas students previously had to pass four exams to graduate.

“I don't know what the magic number is. I don't know that there is a magic number. But fewer (than 15) has got to be better,” said Shirley Neeley, the Texas education commissioner from 2004 to 2007.

Scott, the commissioner from 2007 through summer 2012, said in an interview Monday that he didn't think 15 exams were necessarily too many but he was troubled by the significant consequences — tying a student's grades and diploma to their test scores, especially when the Legislature cut public education funding in 2011.

Spellings, who took the Texas testing system national as a key architect of President Bush's No Child Left Behind Act, said one reason districts want to retreat from accountability is because the results are “embarrassing” — revealing that students are not prepared for college and that poor and minority children trail far behind.